A comparative analysis of the US and EU retail banking markets - Wsbi

ANNEXES
Annex 1: Gauging customer satisfaction
via the use of an index
In the US 401
Established in 1994, the American Customer Satisfaction Index
(ACSI) is a uniform and independent measure of household
consumption experience. The ACSI was developed by the
National Quality Research Center at the Stephen M. Ross
Business School at the University of Michigan.
The ACSI is considered to be a powerful tool to track trends
in customer satisfaction and provides valuable customer
information for companies, industry trade associations and
government agencies. What the ACSI measures is the
quality of goods and services that are purchased in the US
and produced by both domestic and foreign firms that have
substantial US market shares. With the data obtained via the
ACSI, US companies and governmental agencies can know
if customers are satisfied with their consumption
experiences and what is the evolution of the satisfaction
levels. The ACSI would show which are the improving and
declining industry sectors or specific companies within a
sector in terms of levels of customer satisfaction.
ACSI is based on findings from telephone interviews of
a sample of approximately 65,000 customers, and is
conducted annually. The ACSI for each company is based
on 250 customer interviews.
In the EU 402
In 1999, a pilot project was initiated and coordinated by
the European Foundation for Quality Management, the
European Organisation for Quality and the international
academic CSI-network as primary stakeholders to establish
a European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI). For this
purpose, stakeholders from 11 European countries worked
together to develop and test a system for regular customer
satisfaction monitoring and analysis. The European
Commission provided financial support for the project.
The ECSI project aimed at delivering macro-economic
indicators and statistical results concerning perceived
customer satisfaction and quality measurements for
commodities and services in a number of central industries
(i.e. telecommunications, banking and food retail).
The data collection was done using a harmonised set of
questionnaires and a common survey design structure.
A minimum number of 250 observations have been
conducted for each pre-identified company through
telephone interviews and statistical samples of current
customers of the respective company.
Comparison
In both the US and the EU, companies feel very concerned
about the levels of satisfaction of their customers as well as
the evolution of the satisfaction curve which ultimately impacts
on how they plan their business strategy. Customer satisfaction
data is equally important for government agencies and
policy makers responsible for enacting consumer protection
regulation.
In contrast to the common use of a uniform Customer
Satisfaction Index in the US, it appears to be difficult to
establish or to further promote a uniform tool to measure
consumers’ satisfaction levels in the EU as a whole. While in
the European political debate, there are increasingly calls to
increase consumer satisfaction levels, in particular in the
context of consumer opportunities arising from the EU single
market, there appears to be an important information gap
concerning what are the real expectations and current needs
of European consumers. What is more, sometimes evidence on
the potential gains for European consumers from introducing
further internal market legislation is not sufficiently
compelling to justify an increase in the regulatory burden.
401 Information obtained from the American Customer Satisfaction Index organisation website: http://www.theacsi.org/overview.htm
402 Information obtained from the International Foundation for Customer Focus website: http://www.ifcf.net/ecsiPilot.asp
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